We opted to fly to Phoenix Thursday night so that Emmy could sleep in on Friday morning and be more rested for the show. We had dinner with Stephen and Stephanie in the rotating restaurant on the hotel’s twenty-fourth floor that evening. While I’m sure eating there was a big deal for a lot of people, it was hard for me to be very impressed by either the food or the views. That isn’t to say that it was bad- far from it. My lamb with agave-roasted baby carrots was quite good. And the view, well, it rotated, which was unusual, but really, it was just Phoenix. A cluster of tall, interesting buildings that formed Downtown on one side, the ballpark and the train yards on the other side, and an endless sea of streetlights off to the near-infinite distance otherwise.
Stephanie seemed satisfied by Emmy’s condition- she’d stopped asking questions about how Emmy was doing by the time the pretty waitress brought our drinks.
Stephen said that he’d heard from Stein that the two of us had gotten out and gotten a bit out of control. “He told me that you really made him work for it,” Stephen laughed.
“Yeah, it was nice to get out and stretch the Aston’s legs. It’d been too long,” I confirmed.
“If you knew it was going to be just you and him- and we all know what that means for your speeds- why didn’t you drive the 918?” Stephen asked.
I didn’t want to get into that discussion, so I just shrugged. “Like I said, the Aston’s been giving me sad looks every time I take any of the other cars out, so…”
“Sucks to have a problem like that,” he said.
“Hey, speaking of Stein,” I said, turning to Stephanie. “I need you to set him up with two VIP and backstage packages for the LA show. I’ll need four VIP tickets for Geoff, Linda and the girls, two for TB, and two for Jimmy.”
“I’m gonna need more info than that,” Stephanie grimaced. “Like, full names, at least.”
“I’ve got all that for you,” Stephen assured her. Turning to me, he said, “So we’re really going to finally meet Stein’s boyfriend?”
“It was news to me that he even had regular tickets to the show, much less that he had a date,” I said. “He has a boyfriend? This is the first I’ve ever heard of it. I guess I’d never imagined him in any sort of relationship of any kind, you know?”
“Seriously,” Stephen agreed. “The dude never- I mean, never- talks about his private life. I’ve known him for years and I still have no idea what he does for a living. I don’t know what part of town he lives in, or even his favorite football team.”
“Yeah…” I agreed. “He’s unusual, alright.”
After dinner Emmy went back to our suite, but at her urging I stayed out and bellied up to the bar with Stephen, while, unsurprisingly, Stephanie had to go over to the ballpark to deal with something.
“So, um, Leah,” Stephen began after the bartender set down our drinks.
He was having a hard time, so I urged him to just go ahead and say it. “Whatever it is, just say it. You’re not going to hurt my feelings or anything at this point.”
“Yeah, I guess probably not,” Stephen admitted, taking a fortifying sip of his Negrotini or whatever it was they’d called it.
“You know, us guys in the driving group, we all knew that you did MMA fighting, right? I mean, we’d see you with bruises and whatever every now and then, and you weren’t shy about talking about it. Then when you got in that fight with that UFC chick and put her in a hospital it became obvious that you weren’t just, you know, taking kickboxing classes for fun, or something like that. And like TB said once about you, you have,” he said, making air quotes, “an air of danger about you.” He took another sip, thinking about his words. “But I don’t think any of us were prepared for those videos. I must have watched the one- the one where the guy holding the phone says, ‘Hey- what’s she doing?’ right at the start? Like, a dozen times.”
“I’ve never watched any of them with the sound on,” I confessed.
“Oh. Well, it’s the more stable of the two hand-held videos. You should listen… No, maybe not. You’re probably better off not listening to what the guy says while he’s watching. Everything else aside, I have to give the guy credit for doing a good job of filming, given the completely crazy conditions. Anyway, there are a few moments- and I’m telling you this as a friend- that you’re just, like, completely terrifying. There’s this moment where you have this guy’s wrist in your one hand, and it looks like you break it somehow just by twisting, but I don’t see how that’s possible… Anyway, you’ve got your other arm around his neck, kinda cradling his head and he’s struggling, but you… you’re not even paying attention to him as you freaking twist his head pretty much right off. You’re looking around, like, ‘Hmmm… Who’s next?’. The moment you break his neck, you just drop him like a bag of dirty laundry or something and move on, your next target already in your sights.”
“Yeah, several people have mentioned that moment to me,” I said with a sigh.
“It was like watching a nature documentary. Like a Great White Shark going after baby seals or something. Like I said, we all knew you were a fighter, but this… this was Boss Level shit.”
“So,” I said, sipping my Old Fashioned they insisted on adding maple syrup to, “was there a point to all this?”
“Yeah, right,” Stephen said, bringing his focus back to the topic. “So what I was going to say is that us in the driving group, we knew you could fight, right? But seeing it like that… Well, we all of us agreed unanimously that we’re glad you’re our friend, because nobody with any sense of self-preservation would want to be your enemy.”
He took a long sip of his drink before resuming. “You know when we talked, not long after you started driving with the group? You had me Google you, and I found a site that said you’re suspected of several murders…”
“And I told you I had an idea of how those rumors had started, but there was no truth to them,” I confirmed.
“Yeah, that’s what you said,” he agreed. “But I can tell you for certain that a lot of people have been looking at those old stories a bit harder since you showed the world that you are completely capable of, well…”
“A while back- I guess it was right when we bought our place in New York- Emmy and Luisa (she’s our house manager there) and I, we all went out to a comedy club and at three in the morning or whatever it was while we were waiting for our ride after the show, this tweaker pulled a gun to try to rob us. I took the gun from him and broke his hand, then pistol-whipped him and told him to quit moving or I’d kill him. The police showed up pretty quick, and the detective was singularly unimpressed that I’d fought instead of just giving the guy what he wanted,” I told Stephen, idly noticing that the bartender was trying to not be obvious while he listened to our conversation.
“Yeah? So what happened?” Stephen asked. “And by the way, the way you casually described what happened did nothing to diminish your stone cold killer image.”
“The police came the next day to talk to me and give me a hard time, but it was so clearly self-defense and the guy was his own worst enemy as far as his case went that the detective couldn’t do anything but give me a hard time for using excessive violence on the guy.”
“The guy who pulled a gun on you, Emmy, and your friend?” Stephen asked.
“‘Duty to retreat’ and all that, and yeah, I get it, but as I pointed out, this asshole needed some cash for a fix, so he was going to rob or maybe injure or kill somebody- he just happened to run into us. Me putting him out of circulation did somebody else down the line a real favor,” I said. “Anyhow, about a week and a half after Atlanta, my attorney let me know that that junkie found a lawyer to try to shake some money out of me. Threatened to file criminal charges of attempted murder against me.”
“You still have Turner from Stoddard?”
“Yeah,” I replied, sipping my own drink.
“I can only imagine how that went,” Stephen said with a chuckle.
“About exactly how you’d imagine,” I nodded. “But yeah, I expect more of that sort of thing’ll pop up.”
“How… how is that going for you?” Stephen asked, his voice soft. “I mean, you and Emmy, with Angela gone and all.”
“It hurts,” I said honestly. “It hurts a lot. It’s gonna keep on hurting for a very long time, you know? But Em and I, we just need to find a way to move forward. We plan on taking some time after the tour to go somewhere, somewhere we can just be together and not have to think about anything but recovering and finding our feet again. I don’t know how long it would take. A month, two months, more? But that’s what we need to do.”
“Where will you guys go?”
“An undisclosed location,” I said. “A friend- you met him, James? The guy I bought the Spyder from? He offered his family’s private island.”
“Private island? You’re kidding me!” Stephen exclaimed.
“No joke. But I’m not sure that’s where we’ll go. Maybe an exclusive villa in Tuscany or something. The Seychelles, maybe. Just someplace we can relax. That’s the important part,” I said.
“I hope it works for you guys,” Stephen said. “I wish you two the best.”
“Thanks,” I said, lifting my glass and clinking it against his.
“Steph told me that she’s going to take some time off after the tour, too. Do you two have any plans?” I asked.
“She keeps talking about Maui,” Stephen said with a sort of groan. “She wants to buy a place there, you know? But to be honest, I’m just not that big a fan. It’s a cool place to go on vacation, but I just can’t see spending any more than a week or two there before I’d go stir crazy.”
“No good driving roads,” I agreed.
“Exactly! In fact, the driving there is terrible! There’s like one road that loops around the island and everybody drives ten under because their cars are complete pieces of shit with bald tires,” Stephen complained. “But it’s her money, and she can do what she wants with it. I just hope she doesn’t plan on actually living in Hawaii, because that would be, well, really tough as far as work goes, you know?”
“Tough for her work, too,” I pointed out. “And Steph doesn’t seem like the kind of person to enjoy just sitting around and doing nothing for too long.”
“No, that isn’t her at all,” he agreed.
The two shows in Phoenix went off smoothly, and on Sunday morning we made our way to Seattle. I’d explained to Emmy that I had some work that I had to take care of there, and I also thought it would be a good idea for the two of us to meet and greet the local Night Children. She agreed that these were good enough reasons to skip going back to Los Angeles in between the tour dates.
Our hotel was a step below what I’d been getting used to, but it was acceptable. It did happen to be right across the street from the ballpark, so it had that going for it. If it had just been us I would have changed to the place we enjoyed last time, but since the entire entourage was staying there it made sense to be in the same place as everybody else.
When I suggested to Emmy that we eat dinner that night at the wine bar downtown, Emmy countered with asking if it would be O.K. to treat the entire traveling crew later on in the week, after the trucks and buses arrived in town.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“How many people is that, actually?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Emmy admitted. “That is a question for Stephanie.”
“If I had to guess,” I said, hazarding a guess, “judging by what I’ve seen backstage? It has to be near a hundred people, all told.”
“That would not surprise me,” Emmy agreed. “Will the restaurant be able to feed that many?”
“Sure,” I said. “If they have sufficient warning. A couple of days should do it.”
“Then I would like to invite everyone. It has been a very, very long tour, and I would like to let every one of our hard-working crew know that I appreciate their efforts very much,” Emmy declared.
“Sounds good,” I said. “I’m assuming that you’ll want to be there, and so should Jax and Lee, right?”
“Yes, and we must sit with the roadies and riggers, not stay isolated at our own table,” Emmy said, thinking about it.
“Alright, I’ll talk to Rob at the restaurant and get Wednesday night blocked out. But for tonight, how do you feel about grabbing take-out and heading up to visit a certain little man, and maybe his parents?”
“Will they be home?” Emmy asked, perking up at the idea.
“Only one way to find out,” I said, pulling out my phone to text Sana.
I told the guys there was no need for their services that night once they dropped us off at Sana and Donny’s place, and that I’d text when they could come pick us up. I knew full well they were going to spend the evening prowling around the neighborhood, but that was O.K. with me. As long as Emmy and I had our time away from all those concerns and could just visit the little Edwards family in their home like normal people, I didn’t care how much the guys scared the local population.
Aaron rushed past Sana’s legs the moment she opened the door, glomming onto Emmy and squeezing her tight with all the strength his little body could manage.
“What, no hello for me?” I demanded in mock outrage. “I see how you are, little guy,” I said, but I couldn’t help but smile.
“Hi, Auntie Leah,” came his muffled voice. “It’s very nice to see you.”
Laughing, Emmy ruffled his hair and gently moved the two of them inside, past a laughing Sana.
“Great to see you,” I said, giving her a hug as I got close. She took one of the takeout bags from me as we followed Aaron and Emmy into the apartment. “Donny should be home soon. He had to finish up a lab.”
“How often does that happen?” I asked. “Labs running this late?”
“All the time,” Sana groaned as we set the food on the kitchen counter. “We both knew med school was going to be difficult, but the worst of it are the long hours.”
“From what I understand, once he actually gets his residency it can get even worse,” I commiserated.
“That is what we hear,” Sana agreed, resignation in her voice. She took her phone out, and at my questioning look she explained that she was texting Donny to ask if we should wait or go ahead and get started without him. “It’s just Aaron and me about half the time,” she said, setting down the phone.
“Does he still go over to his grandparents’ house on Wednesdays?” I asked as we dished up the manicotti.
“He does, but that just means I have Wednesdays to myself most of the time,” Sana admitted. “It’s nice to have the peace and quiet, but…”
“How much longer does Donny have?” I asked, as if it were a prison sentence.
“Just one more year,” she replied. “By this time next year he’ll be Doctor Donald Edwards, MD. Of course, there’ll be residencies…”
“I don’t really know how that works,” I admitted. “Will he be working in local hospitals?”
“Hopefully,” she said as we carried the food out to the table. “He’s pretty sure he can get into a program at U Dub’s hospital.”
“Well, if you guys need to move, let me know as soon as you can. You know I’d do anything to help you out,” I assured her.
“We know,” she said. “It means so much to us- I hope you know that.”
Donny finally showed up after the rest of us had finished dinner. As tired as he obviously was, he still scooped little Aaron up in his arms and held him close, then leaned in to kiss Sana hello.
“Sorry I’m so late,” he said to Emmy and me as he dropped into an easy chair. “Lab tonight really kicked my butt.”
“It simply allowed me more Aaron time,” Emmy said with a pretty laugh.
“That’s good,” he said, setting his son down. “Everybody needs their Aaron time.”
He looked up gratefully as Sana handed him a plate of food and a fork. “Thanks, hon,” he said. “Sorry I was late.”
She leaned down and gave him a little kiss, then told him to eat up.
Aaron quickly made his way back to the couch, snuggling up against Emmy again. Even as tired as Donny obviously was, we stayed and talked for another couple of hours, just catching up. Thankfully Sana and Donny steered clear of the topic of Angela and what had happened in Atlanta. We talked about Donny’s med school and my business school, and the two committed to coming down and spending Christmas with us in Los Angeles. All in all, it was a perfect way to spend the evening, visiting with old friends and renewing old bonds.
“I do wish that we lived closer,” Emmy said wistfully on the drive back to the hotel by the baseball field. “If we did, we could take Aaron to give Sana and Donny a weekend free every now and then. He is such a charmer!”
“He’s a sweet kid,” I agreed. “But I don’t think Donny and Sana lack for babysitting. I think they simply lack any free time at all.”
“I am certain you are correct,” Emmy said. “Still…”
The next day Emmy slept in while I went to our new local office. It was much, much smaller than either our San Jose or Los Angeles offices, but I was pleased to see that it was nice and welcoming-looking. It was in an old, converted firehouse, occupying the entire upper floor. Downstairs was divided between two storefronts- one, a local bakery that we had an interest in, and the other a small bike shop.
I stopped in the bakery to get a scone and a cup of coffee, pleased to see a middle-aged Night Child woman working the counter. I didn’t recognize her, but by that point that was fairly common.
She didn’t recognize me, either, so I just made small talk while she put my order together. I asked her how long she’d been working there, and if she liked her job. She was pleasantly friendly, and said that she’d been there about a year and a half. It was the best job she’d ever had, she added. Of course that made me feel good about what we were doing, and reinforced the idea that we were actually making peoples’ lives better.
Upstairs, when the pretty young receptionist asked if she could help me, I introduced myself and told her that I’d like to have a meeting with as much of the local staff as could be managed.
“No, it’s nothing bad,” I assured her at her panicked expression. “I just want a feel for how things are going here, and what our next moves should be in the local market.”
“Oh, O.K. The conference room is straight back and to the right. I’ll let everyone know you’re here and want a staff meeting,” she said, turning to her internal phone system.
It didn’t take long for the small conference table’s seats to fill up, leaving a few people standing around the sides of the room.
“First off, thanks for dropping everything for this,” I said. “It wasn’t really my intent to surprise you like this, but…” I said, shrugging. Looking around the room, I only saw a couple of familiar faces, folks that had moved up from the San Jose office. “I haven’t met most of you, and was overdue to come in and make myself known. As I’m sure you know, I’m Leah Farmer, owner of Royal Holdings. I’m assuming that most of you worked for Olympic before I bought the company, right?” At that, most nodded their heads. “Excellent. I’m glad to see so much retention. I’ll want to talk to you one on one to find out how the transition went, and if there was anything we could have done better. Amy, Brian, it’s good to see you guys again- it’s been a while. I’ll talk to you two after I wrap up with everybody else, alright? So, as I said to the girl at the front desk, this isn’t anything bad. This is merely a meet and greet, plus a chance for me to discuss anything that might not find itself on the weekly reports. That’s all. This isn’t a performance review, and I’m not about to fire anybody or anything like that.”
I got a sense of a number of people letting out breaths they hadn’t realized they were holding, and postures relaxed a bit.
“So, anyhow, that’s it. I’m going to be here all morning, and I want to speak with each and every one of you privately. This is your chance to tell me whatever it is you wished the higher management would know, about anything business-related, really. So, let’s start with you,” I said to the man seated to my left. “The rest of you can go back to work. When,” I said, giving the man a questioning look.
“Frank Booth,” he supplied.
“When Frank and I are done, I’ll send him out and he can send in the next person. It doesn’t matter to me what order we talk, as long as I get to talk to everyone by the end of the morning.” With that, everyone but Frank left.
“Sorry for putting you in the hot seat,” I said, sipping my coffee.
“No, it’s fine. I’ve been wanting to meet you for a while, so this is good,” he said.
“Alright. Let me start. I’m Leah Farmer, owner of Royal Holdings. You said your name was Frank Booth, but you don’t look like Dennis Hopper at all.”
This broke the ice, getting me a smile. “Blue velvet…” he crooned off-key.
“Nope- not seeing it,” I said, and just like that we were old friends. We talked for a few minutes about David Lynch films, then got around to talking about work.
“I was worried when Dan and Rebecca said they were going to sell the business,” Frank admitted. “But it’s been a non-issue. We’ve picked up a few more properties, of course, and the paychecks have a different company name on them, but other than that it’s been just about the same.”
That set the tone for most of the meetings that morning. Nobody had any real complaints other than they’d been hoping to move upmarket with the new ownership, but when I explained that wasn’t our niche and that I’d bought Olympic Properties because they fit in well with our portfolio, people seemed satisfied.
Amy and Brian had good things to say about the staff, but both more or less said there was plenty of room for growth in the Seattle area. Amy said that she felt that the current level of staffing was probably going to be fine until we hit somewhere around the one thousand rental unit mark, and then we’d need to take on more managers. Brian said that he’d been looking for purchase opportunities ever since I sent out the email about how we needed to find a way to absorb a lot of capital. All in all, while the visit might not have actually had any measurable performance benefit, it did show me that things in Seattle were well under control.
Of course, nothing I’d seen in any report had ever suggested otherwise, but it was good to find out first-hand. As a bonus, it personalized the company owner to a lot of people who had never had any interaction with me at all.
Pleased with how things went, I was surprised to find Skye Blue and her husband Jasper in the suite’s living room, along with Lee and Jackson, and Emmy, of course.
Skye and Emmy had their guitars in their laps and were working through ‘Tears Like Rain’ from Dark Times.
“Good morning,” I said, leaning down and kissing Emmy’s smiling face. “You hadn’t told me that Skye was going to play with you guys.”
“I only just convinced her in five minutes from now,” Emmy said, with that pretty laugh of hers.
“You really need to take this opportunity, Skye,” Jasper said. “When is the next time you get to play in front of fifty thousand fans at Safeco Field?”
“But what if I fuck it up?” Skye asked, clearly excited and terrified of the idea.
“Just don’t fuck it up,” was all Jasper said.
“Nah, Skye, you’ve got this,” Jackson said, encouragingly. “We’ve run through the song four times now, and you haven’t missed a note.”
“Jax is right,” Lee said. “It’s an easy song. Four four, straight up. Verse, chorus, verse. Just the one bridge, which you nailed. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.”
I made eye contact with Jasper and tilted my head. Understanding, he got up and we grabbed seats at the little dining table, away from everybody else.
“Hey, Leah,” he said when we sat down. “I’m sorry I’ve been slow about the work training thing, it’s just a lot, you know?”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said, waving it away. “It’s entirely up to you and how much time you can put into it. No, I wanted to talk to you about bowls.”
“Bowls?” he asked, surprised. “The bowls I make?”
“Yeah, those. I really liked them when I saw them at your place, but since we were headed up to Alaska I couldn’t take any. But I’m thinking they’d make excellent Christmas gifts.” This got us talking about me commissioning a couple dozen bowls from him, which had the desired effect of taking a little strain off Skye, since he wasn’t there to apply pressure one way or another.
Eventually they left with Skye promising to do at least the Friday night show, and if she didn’t die of nerves, then the Saturday show as well. Jasper was pleased to have a buyer for a lot of product, too, meaning there’d be a nice Christmas for the two of them.
After Lee and Jackson left, Emmy sat on my lap. “You seem to be very pleased with yourself this morning,” she said.
“It’s been a good day so far,” I agreed. “Any plans for this evening?”
“No, nothing. Lee mentioned that Jen wanted to go out somewhere nice tonight, but I think that she means just the two of them.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “How about we do the same? A date night, just you and me.”
“I would like nothing more,” Emmy said, leaning in to kiss me. “I will make reservations.”
Dinner wasn’t what I expected. The restaurant was located in a strange cluster of giant glass and white-painted steel domes, on an upper floor. The place was one open room, so it was loud even though it wasn’t very big. The Italian bistro food was decent, but it wasn’t the nice, intimate setting I was hoping for.
Thankfully, Emmy redeemed the night by leading me (and, of course, our two bodyguards) down to what must have been the basement of the biggest dome to a bar that was themed like the interior of The Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. It was all brass and velvet, with deep blue and green lighting making for a fun effect. The theme carried over to the drinks, too. We were shown to a small couch at one end of the room, facing a low table and then the rest of the bar. Eddie and Nick took a small table off to one side where they could keep watch on everyone, and in turn, everybody stared at them a bit, too, when they weren’t staring at Emmy.
The awkwardness of the situation faded fairly quickly, and after a while it was just me and Emmy, cozying up on that velvet couch, enjoying maybe one or two too many of the place’s excellent cocktails.
We didn’t really talk about anything important, and that was good. Just spending time together like that was exactly what we both needed.
Back in the hotel, I was dismayed to discover that the bath had a standard-sized fiberglass tub, not really big enough for the two of us. It made for a small shower area, too, which curtailed my plans for some soapy time. Emmy wasn’t so willing to be deterred, though. She filled the tub and insisted I climb in, then she nestled herself against me, my legs bent double on either side of her narrow hips. It wasn’t the greatest tubbing experience, but it was better than nothing.
Emmy eventually wound up sitting on my lap, leaning her upper body against mine with her knees up against my sides. It couldn’t have been comfortable, but that seemed to be low on her list of priorities.
“I had a wonderful day today, Leah. Thank you,” she said, her voice soft and tender.
“I had a nice evening, too,” I replied, kissing her hair. “Thanks for making arrangements. That bar was really cool.”
“It was fun,” Emmy agreed. “It was like something from Jules Verne,” she said, pronouncing his name as if it were French. After a tiny moment of wondering at the way she said the name, I realized with a metaphorical face palm that of course he was French, not English.
“Make love to me tonight,” Emmy pleaded when I’d dried her off. “But… no beast, please.”
“Are you sure you’re ready?” I asked, both concerned and hopeful.
“I am,” Emmy confirmed. “But please be gentle.”
“Oh, baby,” I said, carefully picking her up and carrying her to the bed. “I can do that.”